BUFFALO – The onslaught ended 11:49 into the game, when Sabres winger Beck Malenstyn grabbed linemate Nicolas Aube-Kubel’s pass at the edge the slot, skated in and tucked a backhander past Colorado Avalanche goalie Alexandar Georgiev.
Malenstyn’s goal on the Sabres’ eighth shot extended their lead to 4-0 and put the wonky Georgiev on the bench for the rest of Tuesday’s contest.
Even with 48 minutes remaining against one of the NHL’s heavyweights, it felt like the Sabres would cruise to a much-needed victory. At the very least, it appeared they would end their three-game winless skid, even if the Avalanche made things interesting.
Few envisioned the Sabres would suffer one of the most stunning losses in franchise history.
In an utterly embarrassing display, they imploded late, allowing four third-period goals and losing 5-4 before a surly crowd of 14,942 in KeyBank Center that booed the home team off the ice when the final horn sounded.
“It sucks. It just sucks, honestly,” Sabres winger Alex Tuch said of the loss. “We have to be better. Each and every guy needs to be better. It’s honestly horse (crap). Sorry. Pardon my French, but it is. We left (goalie Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen) hanging. We left each other hanging. We weren’t working for each other after the first period.
“We thought it was going to be easy, that they were just going to go into a hole. It’s former Stanley Cup champs over there. One of the best players in the world (MacKinnon). One of the best defensemen in the world (Cale Makar). You can’t give them opportunities like that. It’s total crap.”
To make matters worse, Sabres coach Lindy Ruff said captain Rasmus Dahlin, his top defenseman, left the game with back spasms after taking one shift in the third period. The back injury is related to the one he suffered on the first day of training camp. Ruff had no other information.
They certainly felt the Swede’s absence.
After superstar Nathan MacKinnon’s second goal of the night tied the game 7:39 into the third period, Artturi Lehkonen scored the winner at 15:38, potting a rebound in front of Luukkonen.
How rarely do teams erase four-goal deficits and win? The Sabres blew a four-goal lead and lost for just the second time in their 55-year history. They hadn’t done it since March 12, 1988 in Calgary. They also led that game 4-0 before falling 10-4 to the Flames.
The Sabres, who own an NHL-record 13-year playoff drought, somehow found a fresh way to lose.
“We’ve had enough wake-up calls,” said center Tage Thompson, who gave the Sabres a 2-0 lead by the 6:39 mark. “It’s terrible. That’s all there is to it.”
Just 25 games into the season, the Sabres have reached a critical juncture. They’ve fallen out of a playoff spot and are 0-3-1 in their last four outings. In their previous three games, they scored three total goals and were shut out twice.
Tuesday’s contest kicked off a season-long five-game home stand. If things snowball, they could drop out of the postseason chase before Christmas.
In the recent past, of course, losing streaks have dragged on.
“It’s my job not to let it snowball,” Ruff said. “We’ll address it. We’ll deal with it. We’ll go over it. It’s hard, painful. But I think you’ve got to look at we got a little short-handed in the third period. We played without Dahls. That got us in a little bit of problem.
“But when you’re short-handed, you got to believe even more in your system and you got to manage the puck even better. And we didn’t.”
What else happened? The Sabres panicked.
“Once we give one up, we start panicking and thinking too much about worst-case scenario, and we just panic, we don’t make smart plays,” Sabres center Dylan Cozens said. “We’re just thinking negatively about what could happen.”
After Logan O’Connor scored 4:30 into the third period, moving Colorado within one goal, Ruff used his timeout to settle down his team.
“I sensed panic,” he said. “We were running around in our end. We’ve been pretty good at staying in pretty good position in our end. Two of the goals, we were out of position, just flat out of position.
“And then you look at the last couple, just net-front, box your guy out. Be strong around the net front. Not strong enough allowed them to tip the puck to get under puck, to get in front of our goaltender.”
Incredibly, the Sabres fell to 1-2-1 this season when they force their opponent to pull its starting goalie. Scott Wedgewood, who spent 2018-19 with the Rochester Americans, stopped all 22 shots he faced in place of Georgiev.
Winger JJ Peterka scored the Sabres’ other goal, ending an eight-game drought. Luukkonen made 36 saves.
When the Sabres scored their fourth goal, the Avalanche had just four shots.
“We’ve been through this before where we just panic, and then we keep losing,” Cozens said. “We ended up being so close at the end of the year. We can’t worry about it too much.”
spent close to 400 bucks on 2 tickets, along with parking ,concessions and etc, made the 2 and a half hour drive up from elmira to watch what happened, we’ll the Sabres are a quarter through the season and u bring in lindy ,so what has changed, James from elmira, ny